5 Candidates Take Aim at Cooley in Race for D.A.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has made controversial decisions dealing with the Belmont Learning Complex, the LAPD’s Rampart Division and Newhall Land & Farming Co.

The five candidates challenging him for the chief prosecutor position are criticizing those decisions in their attempt to force him into a runoff and eventually unseat him.

But political consultants say Cooley’s opponents lack the campaign funds to mount a serious challenge to the district attorney, who has amassed roughly $1 million and launched a countywide campaign with mailers, phone calls and television spots.

In addition to the district attorney’s race, there are nine judicial races, including four in which sitting judges are being challenged.

Cooley beat incumbent Gil Garcetti and took office in December 2000. In his three years of office, Cooley has stopped seeking life sentences for most nonviolent third-strikers, prosecuted corrupt public officials and created a forensic science unit to solve cold cases.

The district attorney also decided not to seek criminal charges in connection with the Belmont Learning Complex, and agreed to drop a criminal investigation of the Newhall Ranch project in exchange for the firm’s promise to set aside a 64-acre preserve for an endangered plant the company allegedly destroyed.

Cooley’s opponents accuse him of failing to take on tough cases.

“Mr. Cooley has not exercised leadership in any meaningful way,” opponent and public law attorney Roger Carrick said. “I think we have a D.A. who learned the wrong lessons in his career. He learned the lesson of nothing ventured, nothing lost.”

The candidates running for district attorney include Carrick, former City Councilman Nick Pacheco, Head Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Higgins, Deputy Dist. Atty. Denise Moehlman, and former Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Patchett. Cooley must win more than 50% of the vote Tuesday to avoid a runoff.

Cooley called his challengers “spite candidates” and said they don’t have funds, endorsements or real issues. “I think my opponents are generally, across the board, unqualified or unsuited for this office,” he said.

Pacheco, who represented the 14th City Council District until losing in July, said he would target environmental crimes and work more closely with neighborhoods to reduce gang crime. Pacheco is running a television spot that features a barking dog and accuses Cooley of having “all bark and very little bite.”

“Cooley is missing in action in our neighborhoods,” Pacheco said. “I would bring the office closer to the community.”

But Pacheco has some controversy in his own background. He was the subject of inquiries into donations he made to a nonprofit organization during his City Council campaign and into contentious phone calls during Rep. Xavier Becerra’s mayoral campaign.

Carrick has held news conferences along what he calls Cooley’s “Trail of Shame,” with stops at Belmont, Rampart and in West Hollywood, where he attacked the district attorney’s record on hate crimes. Carrick said his top priority would be reducing gang-related gun violence. Carrick is a public law attorney who represented the Los Angeles Unified School District inspector general during his probe of Belmont.

Higgins, who heads the workers’ compensation unit for the district attorney’s office, said he would prosecute more third-strike cases and would file more violent-juvenile cases directly in adult court. He would increase crime prevention programs and put more emphasis on child and elder abuse.

“I think we need a broader vision of what a district attorney is all about,” said Higgins, who has been with the district attorney’s office since 1969.

Retired Deputy Dist. Atty. Patchett said hate crimes, environmental crimes and worker safety cases are not prosecuted aggressively by the district attorney’s office. He said Cooley shouldn’t rely on the federal government to do his job for him.

If elected, Patchett said, he would place more emphasis on domestic violence, consumer fraud and identity theft cases. He also would involve churches in the fight against gang violence. Patchett headed the district attorney’s investigation into Belmont, but left the office in 2001 after unsuccessfully arguing for criminal charges in the case.

Moehlman, a prosecutor, said she would create a new witness protection program, expand DNA testing and put more resources into prosecuting identity theft and burglary cases.

Moehlman filed a lawsuit against the district attorney’s office, but a Superior Court judge threw it out in 2002 and ordered her to pay the county $111,562 in lawyers’ fees. Her suit alleged that the office retaliated against her after she made a sexual harassment complaint against a colleague. An appellate court is reviewing the case.

In the judicial races, two of the judges being challenged are David S. Wesley, who supervises the criminal courts, and Dan T. Oki , who presides over civil cases in downtown Los Angeles.

The two jurists came under fire after dozens of defendants were released in May when the court, faced with budgetary constraints, refused to keep the court open after hours for arraignments. One of those defendants is now charged in a murder he allegedly committed after being released.

The decision came after a long Memorial Day weekend and months of discussions between judges and prosecutors about the problem.

The Los Angeles County Bar Assn., in its evaluations of candidates, rated both Wesley and Oki well qualified and rated two of Oki’s opponents -- Hilary Anne Rhonan and Eugene M. Salute -- unqualified.

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Roger Carrick

Age: 52

Occupation: Public law attorney

Residence: Los Angeles

Family: Single

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Harvard University; law degree, UC Berkeley

Career highlights: Served as deputy assistant to Gov. Jerry Brown and as special assistant attorney general to John Van de Kamp; worked as chairman of the California Environmental Practice Group; opened his own firm, the Carrick Law Group, in 2000.

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Steve Cooley

Incumbent

Age: 56

Occupation: District attorney of Los Angeles County

Residence: Toluca Lake

Family: Married, two grown children

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Cal State L.A.; law degree, USC

Career highlights: Joined D.A.’s office in 1973; served as deputy in charge of the narcotics division and as head deputy of the welfare fraud division and the Antelope Valley and San Fernando office; elected D.A. in 2000.

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Anthony Patchett

Age: 64

Occupation: Attorney

Residence: Glendale

Family: Married, two grown children

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Cal State LA; law degree, Valley University School of Law

Career highlights: Joined the district attorney’s office as an investigator in 1967; began as deputy district attorney in 1980; retired in 1996 as assistant head deputy and returned for one year to head the Belmont task force. Currently works as a sole practitioner.

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Nick Pacheco

Age: 40

Occupation: Attorney

Residence: Los Angeles

Family: Married, one daughter, one stepson and one stepdaughter

Education: Bachelor’s degree, UC Berkeley; law degree, Loyola Law School

Career highlights: Served as deputy district attorney from 1995 to 1999 and as Los Angeles city councilman from 1999 to 2003; worked as attorney at Thever & Associates law firm.

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Tom Higgins

Age: 62

Occupation: Head deputy district attorney

Residence: La Verne

Family: Married, eight children

Education: Bachelor’s, Cal State Sacramento; law degree, McGeorge School of Law

Career highlights: Joined the district attorney’s office in 1969; served as deputy in charge of offices in West Covina and El Monte and head deputy of child abuse/sex crimes, juvenile and, currently, workers’ compensation fraud divisions.

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Denise Moehlman

Age: 44

Occupation: Deputy district attorney

Residence: Marina del Rey

Family: Single

Education: Bachelor’s degree, Michigan State University; law degree, Loyola Law School

Career highlights: Joined the district attorney’s office in 1988; has worked throughout the county, including at branch offices in Glendale, Pasadena and Norwalk.